Christopher Nolan has had quite an interesting film career. On the whole, I generally enjoy his films. He can get a little pretentious at times. Yet he’s a fantastic filmmaker and takes his craft seriously. The one area I would say he generally struggles in is the emotion behind a film. He’s so focused on the craft and message of the film that he overlooks the heart of the film. And the one time where the heart mattered the most, INTERSTELLAR, I felt he kind of dropped the ball. That being said, he did kind of nail it several years before then with THE PRESTIGE.
DUNKIRK is easily Nolan’s simplest film. I don’t meant that in a bad way, at all. Nolan decides to just tell this story without much flare which really works. There’s barely even a score. It’s one track that stretches throughout the entirety of the film sinking and rising when the situation changes. Something I felt fit incredibly well with the tone of this WWII film.
DUNKIRK is easily Nolan’s simplest film. I don’t meant that in a bad way, at all. Nolan decides to just tell this story without much flare which really works. There’s barely even a score. It’s one track that stretches throughout the entirety of the film sinking and rising when the situation changes. Something I felt fit incredibly well with the tone of this WWII film.
Nolan’s sensibilities really work for DUNKIRK. It’s a film that is all about survival in a hopeless situation. Based off the real-life event in May of 1940 where 400,000 British and French men were surrounded with no way to get home. They’re basically fish in a shooting barrel. Nolan did say that he didn’t want to tell an actual account of what happened but more of give an experience of what it was like. After doing a little bit of research on what in the movie is true and not, Nolan apparently did a pretty damn good job.
We follow three stories. Three civilians heading to Dunkirk to escort the stranded men, three pilots of the Royal Air Force, and one infantry trying to get off the Dunkirk shore. Normally I want to have an emotional connection with the characters in the film so I can have some sort of investment in what’s going on in the movie. I couldn’t tell you a single character’s name even having just seen this movie less than an hour before writing this. I don’t know who these people are, what their story before this is, who they have waiting for them, anything. Yet I was still invested.Not because I wanted these specific characters to live. But because I could get a sense of how horrific everything happening to them was. I felt sorry for them.
We follow three stories. Three civilians heading to Dunkirk to escort the stranded men, three pilots of the Royal Air Force, and one infantry trying to get off the Dunkirk shore. Normally I want to have an emotional connection with the characters in the film so I can have some sort of investment in what’s going on in the movie. I couldn’t tell you a single character’s name even having just seen this movie less than an hour before writing this. I don’t know who these people are, what their story before this is, who they have waiting for them, anything. Yet I was still invested.Not because I wanted these specific characters to live. But because I could get a sense of how horrific everything happening to them was. I felt sorry for them.
This is largely due to the fact that what Nolan lacks in emotional storytelling he makes up for in technical storytelling. He’s got an insane attention to detail. For these men, this was a hopeless endeavor. There was very little any one person could do. Even when they think they might be on their way out things would go wrong and they’d be either dead or right back where they started. Simply being able to follow these people, especially the infantry who’s doing so much only to accomplish so little, really gets you involved.
One of my favorite little things Nolan does is he never shows a single enemy soldier. We see a few planes, but no people. He hear gunshots, bombs, see people getting shot and blown up. But we never see the faces of those who did it. Add that with the opening scene of a bunch of flyers literally falling from the sky telling everyone how screwed they are and the enemy comes across as truly ominous.
One of my favorite little things Nolan does is he never shows a single enemy soldier. We see a few planes, but no people. He hear gunshots, bombs, see people getting shot and blown up. But we never see the faces of those who did it. Add that with the opening scene of a bunch of flyers literally falling from the sky telling everyone how screwed they are and the enemy comes across as truly ominous.
At a relatively short runtime of 1 hour and 46 minutes there’s little time for rest. This, I’m sure, is by design as Nolan really wanted to recreate the experience of being at Dunkirk. You couldn’t rest. At any moment the enemy could decide to drop some more bombs or they could breach the barricades and you’ll be on the wrong end of a shooting gallery. Right from the start you never feel at ease and that sense of dread continues on until, and even beyond the end credits.
Every moment is visually exciting and nerve-wracking. I’ll go as far as to say this is a technical masterpiece. I believe I remember reading someone comparing this to Hitchcock. I can’t say that guy was too far off. DUNKIRK truly puts you on the shores with the men trapped back in 1940. While I didn’t get to know anyone on a personal level I definitely could empathize with everyone who was there. And I think that is what Nolan was going for.
9/10
